'Always' - Newcastle United CEO highlights 'big' transfer decision after £68m summer sales

Newcastle have signed Lloyd Kelly, Odysseas Vlachodimos, John Ruddy, Will Osula and made Lewis Hall’s loan move from Chelsea permanent for £28million so far this summer. The club are also in talks with Crystal Palace regarding the signing of defender Marc Guehi.

The Magpies have seen two bids rejected for the England international, who is valued at £65million by The Eagles.

Newcastle have appointed Mitchell as the club’s new sporting director, spearheading the summer recruitment drive. But Eales stressed that patience is required after a slow summer so far.

“We’re always trying to improve each transfer window,” Eales said. “We’ve got Paul now in the building and he and Eddie are talking daily.

“We’ll see [about new signings], we always want to strengthen so we’ll just have to wait.”

On Mitchell, Eales added: “When looking at the sporting director role, we were really focused on recruiting an expert, we wanted someone who knew the Premier League and also had that global experience and there’s not many people who tick that box so from our perspective to get someone of Paul’s calibre I think is going to be amazing.”

It has been a difficult summer behind the scenes at Newcastle with the departure of co-owners Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi. The club were also at risk of breaching Premier League Profitability and Sustainability Rules before the sales of Yankuba Minteh to Brighton for £33million and Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest for £35million.

“It is a collaboration,” Eales continued. “Think of [PSR] like a salary cap. When you’re looking at signings, you can’t look at it in isolation because there is only a fine amount you can spend so every decision you make from a back-up left-back through to the starting centre forward, they all have a knock-on impact.

“We have to be as efficient as possible with every decision.

“When you look back to last year, Yankuba Minteh didn’t actually play for Newcastle but he was a big part of our story last year.

“Every decision we make we’ll try and make a better footballing decision. Having people like Paul and James [Bunce] in the building, it helps us to raise that bar.

“The great thing is it’s good for everybody. We’re just excited to get working really.”